er of congratulation to the friends of on and civilization in every part of the d, to see the citizens of the United s and the subjects of Great Britain, in sland of Ceylon, mutually recollecting, r the immediate protection of the sh government, their common origin, their common sympathies, and mutuforgetting, under the peaceful influence he christian religion, their former jeaies, and their national animosities, coate with equal zeal and prudence in ading the English, their common lange, into every part of India, in instructthe understandings and in improving moral and social feelings of the natives very caste and religious persuasion, and enderiug applicable and advantageous heir present situation all their moral and itical institutions, which, under various difications and various denominations, e, in all ages and in all countries, whener and wherever introduced with pruice and moderation, invariably secured liberty of the subject, the authority of government, and the prosperity of the ion. I have the honour to be, dear sir, irs, very faithfully, A. JOHNSTON.

o the Honourable S. VAILE, &c., Acting Minister 'lenipotentiary, from the United States of Ameica, to Great Britain."

Missionary Rooms, Boston,
U.S. A. Jan. 23, 1833.

DEAR SIR.-In transmitting a copy of a esolution you did us the honour to move the annual meeting of the Subscribers to = Oriental Translation Fund of Great itain and Ireland, Mr. Vail, our chargé affaires, was so kind as to forward also copy of the letter from yourself, which closed the resolution to him. These cuments having been laid before the udential Committee of the American ard of Commissioners for Foreign Misns, I am instructed to communicate the Howing Resolutions in return, viz.

Resolved, That the Prudential Comttee, recognize with gratitude the honoure notice of the Board, taken by Sir Alexder Johnston at the last Annnal Meeting the Subscribers to the Oriental Translan Fund of Great Britain and Ireland; as Il as his favourable opinion of the Ceylon Ission, and his lively interest in its welfare, pressed in a letter to A. Vail, Esq. dated pt. 22, 1832, and that he be assured that e important aid rendered by him to the ssion of the Board in Ceylon, while resid5 on that island, is thankfully remembered the patrons of the Mission in this intry."

Resolved, That the Secretaries submit the Board, at its next Annual Meeting,

the Resolution of the Subscribers to the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, at their late anniversary; together with the Letters of Sir Alexander John

ston and A. Vail, Esq."

"The next Annual Meeting of our Board, will be held in Philadelphia, in September. Meanwhile, I beg your acceptance of a copy of our last Annual Report, (the 23d,) which I send for you to the care of the Rev. Wm. Ellis, Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society, Austin Friars, London in that document you will learn the present state of our operations in different parts of the world.

:

"A fact, however, which has afforded us the greatest pleasure is not mentioned in the report. It is, that Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, the Governor of Ceylon, has been pleased to grant permission for new missionaries to come from America, until reference can be made to England on the subject, and has also promised to write in favour of the Mission to his Majesty's Secretary of State, requesting an official removal of the restrictions which have for so many years prevented the enlargement of our operations in Ceylon; such an event we confidently anticipated, whenever the character of our mission should become fully understood by the government; and we are grateful to the enlightened friends who have taken so much pains to collect and diffuse correct information on the subject. I am, dear sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,-R. ANDERSON,

"Foreign Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions."

From the facts communicated in the above article, there is surely ample ground to encourage the most sanguine hopes for the future. On the one hand, the efficient and ready protection of the English government, while it has already been of such essential service to the cause of religion in Ceylon, holds out the most gratifying prospects for the future. It may surely be taken as an indication of their anxiety to aid more private and individual efforts to extend to every part of their dependencies the light and blessings of the gospel, and those collateral advantages of civilization and morality which invariably follow in its train. We may also be permitted to express a hope, that the noble, zealous, and successful efforts of Sir Alexander Johnston may operate as a stimulus and an example to his successors; and that the time is not far distant when Christianity shall have found in Asia a lasting restingplace, and a theatre for the operation of its mightiest and happiest effects.

ON THE EXERTION OF LABOUR, AS AFFECTING NATIONAL OPULENCE.

IN our last number we offered some remarks on the influence of science and skill, in the application of labour, on the opulence or poverty of nations; adhering still to the subject of national wealth, we beg to draw attention, in the present number, to another of the causes on which that wealth depends.

The condition of individuals, and the magnitude of the population of nations, are dependent on the productiveness of industry, in procuring subsistence. Not only so, but all the higher and nobler interests of mankind, moral and intellectual, are likewise dependent on opulence, and through which alone their interests can be secured and advanced, and hence those inquiries by which the sources of riches may be developed, are of transcendent value.

The original acquisition of all the necessaries and conveniences of life is effected by labour. In every nation, and in every state of society, it is only through the introduction of labour that the subsistence of man can be acquired. "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," applies to all our race, and to almost every article by which our wants and wishes are supplied and gratified. "Though the woods abound with fruits, with vegetable productions, and with game; though the waters abound with fish, and the bowels of the earth with minerals, the fruits and vegetables must be gathered before they can be of use to us; the game and the fish must be caught, the earth opened, and the metal separated from the ore, and prepared, before it can be used." Even in the most fertile soils, either from the prolific qualities of their plants and aniinals, which are useless or noxious to man, or from the intervention of deep swamps, impenetrable forests, and the like, they present all the barrenness of the desert, and mostly require persevering labour before they become highly productive. The animal and vegetable productions of the earth are presented only at certain times or seasons of the year, and hence they must be laid up in store, and preserved, to supply us in those seasons when they could not otherwise be had; besides that almost all the productions of nature are presented to us in a rude state, and call for the application of labour to prepare and fashion or modify them for use.

Nature furnishes the materials on which labour is exerted, together with her creative agency, her productive motions or operations, her laws of attraction, repulsion,

expansion, contraction; gravity, and the like; "the processes performed by the soil, the air, the rain, and the sun;" with which man co-operates. The variety of produc tions which labour draws and fashions from the original sources contributed by nature, are almost beyond conception. There is scarcely anything which the rational desires fa man can call for, the materials of which do not exist in the world, and which labour, aided by capital, and skilfully applied, i not competent to afford us a supply of The bounty of Providence is no less conspi cuous in the amplitude of the rewards of exertion which are placed within our reach, than its wisdom is displayed in the effective ness of the motives of fear and hope, of evil to be averted and of good to be attained, by which man is moved from state of inaction, and impelled to exert his powers.

Since, then, nothing can be procured for the satisfaction of our wants and desires, without the exertion of labour, it is, in every nation, its labour which is that great fund, by the outlay of which its supply of all the necessaries and conveniences of life: is acquired. Consequently, it is this fund that calls, in an especial manner, for wis dom in its direction, and for care and economy in husbanding its expenditure, that it may neither lie idle and unproductive, nor be suffered to go to waste in useless or unprofitable channels.

It is obvious, that, cæteris paribus, the opulence of society must depend on the greater or less quantity of labour which it exerts. The quantity of labour exerted in any community, will depend, first, on the industry of the persons engaged in labour; and, secondly, on the number of those industrious persons, in relation to the num ber of other persons who are unemployed.

The industry of mankind depends on the operation of the two motives to exertionfear and hope. The lash of the overseer is the incentive by which the slave is impelled to labour; the dread of want may be that by which the free labourer is often actuated; while hope may frequently be introduced, and afford a double motive, by adding the cheering prospect of bettering his condition, and providing comforts and enjoyments for himself and family. It cannot be doubted that the operation of both these motives, when a number of individuals of different temperaments and character are to be wrought upon, must be more effectual than one of them alone. Hence the superiority which is found in free labour over that of slaves in the former, fear and hope are combined; in the latter, fear alone is in

during its whole continuance, and might equally well have been employed as not during that whole time? How then can it be that capital is the cause of employment, and that a slackness of work is to be ascribed to a want of capital, when, with an abundance of every requisite kind of capital, the workmen are standing still? It is plain that the want of employment must proceed from some other cause.

Again, we have observed already, that labour bestowed upon natural products is the only source of wealth. When labour has been bestowed upon natural products, they become articles of wealth and capital: but they were not such until labour was bestowed upon them. Consequently, it is labour that creates capital. It is not possible, then, that a want of employment can be the result of a want of capital, when it is labour (alone that originally created capital, and has been the source of every subsequent addition to it. If such were the case, the remedy for a want of work would be nothing more than a farther exertion of labour.

But if a want of work does not proceed from a want of capital, the causes must be sought for elsewhere; and therefore we proceed to the inquiry-what are the causes of employment, or of a scarcity of employ

ment?

The ability to labour, and the possession of tools and materials, or land, whereon to labour, are of themselves sufficient to afford fullest occupation to him who is willing to work. Nothing more than these are necessary. That which spurs men on to labour, must, no doubt, be the never-ending cravings of their wants and wishes. But that which occasions a want of employment, cannot be the absence of these cravings, because they always exist and operate. Notwithstanding the high degree of efficiency to which labour has already attained, human wants and wishes are far from being satisfied. On every hand we are still surrounded with poverty and misery, and when real wants are supplied, artificial ones immediately arise actually more numerous, and scarcely less clamorous. with demands for labour greater than the utmost powers of humanity could ever satisfy, the labourer is still without full employment. This apparently contradictory state of things must be accounted for, either from an inability to satisfy our cravings by means of labour; or an inability to do so at a sacrifice of less labour than is esteemed equivalent to the value of the indulgence of the cravings themselves: in other words, the cravings cannot be indulged

Yet

except at a cost of more than the indulgence is worth. Here are two opposite motives the indulgence on one hand, and the sacrifice of acquiring it on the other: the excess of the former over the latter consti tutes the motive to exertion.

Now a constant and effective demand in labour would be produced by the combined nation of these circumstances.-First, that the labourers be sufficiently skilled in the sole various occupations, the produce of which is called for in the existing state of things Secondly, that there exist a distribution of the labourers in the several occupations pro portioned to the call there is for the respec tive articles, the produce of these occupo tions. Thirdly, that no higher prices be insisted on than the purchasers are able and willing to give, or than the existing state of jeres the market allows, of taking off the whole quantity of labour of that particular kind. These prices are those which the free and so open competition of the market determines; and a consequence of this exact distribution of labour, and of the contentedness to accept such prices, would be, a certam equality in the rate of remuneration labour in the several occupations, differing only in the different departments, as differ ence of skill, or other circumstances, realiy call for higher wages in some than in others. Lastly, that commodities be exempted from unreasonable taxation. These several circumstances existing, a steady and effectual demand for labour will always be found, and industry may exert itself to the full extent of its powers, with out apprehension, either that a vent shall be wanting for its produce, or that an inadequate remuneration of labour shall be obtained. But if any one of these circumstances be wanting, the workmen may be expected to be at times without full employment, and industry, in a measure, cramped in its exertion. In remarking further upon these points, we observe

First, that a want of employment is often to be ascribed to the want of sufficient knowledge or skill in workmen. The fall development of the powers of industry essentially depends on the possession of knowledge and skill in the application of labour. If the labourer be rude, or not sufficiently skilled, to produce the articles we require, it is not likely there should be full employment for such unskilful labour. If the great bulk of the people of a country is uninstructed in the arts of life; if they are able only to tend cattle, grow potatoes, construct mud cabins, or weave the coarsest cloth, our want of such things may be soon supplied. When this is done, we have no

rther occasion for labour that can furnish thing more desirable. All Ireland might efed, and clothed, and lodged, as her easantry is fed, and clothed, and lodged ith less than the tithe of their labour; ad while her peasantry can do nothing etter than this, they must continue with at a tithe of their labour in demand, and e rest of their time must unavoidably be bent in idleness. It is this unskilfulness, is ignorance of every art, that is, in every oor and barbarous country, the true cause fa want of employment; from the inabity to produce anything desirable, or to roduce it with a less sacrifice than the ratification it would yield is worth.

Of this important fact, that it is ignoance which is the great parent of idleness n barbarous or partially civilized countries, we cannot be too fully persuaded. A glance at the different stages in the progress of nan, from ignorance and barbarism to civiization and refinement, would sufficiently demonstrate the truth of this position. Contrast the indefatigable industry of an Englishman with the irreclaimable indolence of a savage on the coast of Africa, or an Indian of America. In this last case we have a man who performs every kind of labour for himself, but destitute of the knowledge of every art of civilized life. Here is evidently no mis-direction of labour, and no glut of any one particular sort. The direction of industry to the kind of labour most wanted is complete: the individual changes his occupation from producing one article to producing another, at the moment that his want of the first article is supplied. His want of occupation, then, cannot be the result of industry improperly directed. This man can build his hut, procure his food from the wild fruits and herbs of the woods, or by the chase and fishing; he can make his hunting and fishing weapons and tackle, and form his clothing from the skins of the wild animals he takes. Every thing, however, that he does is in the rudest and most simple fashion: he is unable to add beauty, fineness, or splendour, to any of his works; or, if able, it is only at a sacrifice of toil of an intolerable magnitude. Like the Peruvians at the time of the invasion of the Spaniards, he might, perhaps, be able at the expiration of two years of persevering industry to manufacture a yard of cloth; that is, at a cost of more than it could possibly be worth. The wants of such a man, as far as his abilities can gratify them, or can do so at a reasonable cost, are soon supplied. The first animal he kills, is, in all probability, more than sufficient for his food for the day, perhaps sufficient for several

days. When his stomach is filled, there is nothing more that he can do to gratify his desires: he may wish for better clothing, better lodging, better tools; but those which he has already are the best his skill can furnish. Nothing then remains to be done, but to be idle, or amuse himself in the best way he can: these are his only resort. It is thus with every savage; and how could it be otherwise? His indolence, which is proverbial, is more from force of circumstances than even from habit or disposition: it is these circumstances, in fact, that have produced the habit and disposition. Neither is it from want of appetite, or suffi ciently elevated desires, that his indolence proceeds, but from the want of power to gratify them; for his excesses are equally notorious with his indolence, which are sure to be indulged in whenever the indulgence of appetite is within his reach. Thus, it is plain that a want of occupation, and sometimes its consequence, a habit of idleness, is the unavoidable accompaniment of an unskilfulness of labour, and ignorance of the arts of life.

He

On the other hand, skill, intelligence, and refinement are the inexhaustible sources of activity, and of indefatigable industry, which carry men almost to excess. Take the case of a man highly intelligent, and skilled in the arts which distinguish and adorn civilized life. Let such an individual be placed, like the savage, in circumstances where there can be no superabundance of labour of any particular kind, through an improper direction given to it; this man would not be satisfied with the mere supply of the absolute wants of the stomach, shelter from the weather, or the covering of his limbs; his wants extend farther. desires food of the choicest kinds; his drink must be, not simple water, but fermented liquors, or spirits. Having skill to produce such things with a moderate degree of exertion, if leisure allow, he busies himself to procure them. His habitation must not be merely a mud hut, a cabin, or cavern of the earth, it must be of larger dimensions, of commodious and tasteful arrangement, constructed with materials neatly put together, beautifully finished, and furnished not only abundantly with articles of use, but of taste and ornament. The same of his dress, his equipage, his attendance. His intelligence brings him in connexion with things unknown and unthought of by the savage; and which, while it gives him new faculties of enjoyment, at the same time gives him new perceptions of wants. The object of his desires multiply; they extend from such as are of a physical to those which are of an intellectual character; the pleasures of